Hobby Friday- Making that tactical squad an assault squad

When I decided on the units I would want for the Pride of the Emperor Space Marine army list, a counts-as Blood Angels army, I knew right away that I would want assault squads without the jump packs to be put in Razorbacks and a Land Raider.  Unfortunately, the Assault squad didn't come with regular back packs, so I'd have to do some converting of the Tactical squads.

The first thing I noticed were the Bolters and a severe lack of a chain sword.  Next I noticed there were no weapon options for the Sergeant, which I planned to put lightning claws on (lions have claws, of course).  I was going to have to do some converting to get these guys as close to WISIWYG as I could.

To solve the problem of the bolt pistol, it seemed logical to chop the end of the bolter down and adjust the arms to be pointing outward.  After cutting this piece off, I noticed that it was just about the same length as the open left hand of the tactical marines that normally hold part of the bolter.  It dawned on me that a great weapon which would be easy to build would be a katar, using the left over bolter piece as the handle and simply plasticarding the remaining blade area.  Since I'd been struggling to come up with a good assault weapon for the chapter, this was a fortuitous turn of events.

And for a final look at what an assault marine will look like-

After doing some trimming and getting the model in position, the remaining 15 would end up being a piece of cake to adjust.  In the end the fluff will justify katar as a humming weapon which in all ways works like a chain sword.  Now for the Sergeants and those lightning claws!